


downplay this

by lotts (LottieAnna)



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Dogs, Fluff and Crack, Gen, M/M, they're all buffoons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-12
Updated: 2019-01-12
Packaged: 2019-10-08 13:55:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17387591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LottieAnna/pseuds/lotts
Summary: “So, like, when you know someone— and you’re friends with someone— I mean, sometimes things happen. Like, maybe someone gets turned into a dog, or someone gets feelings, or… I dunno. Stuff like that.”





	downplay this

**Author's Note:**

> IF YOU FOUND THIS THROUGH GOOGLING, KNOW ANYONE MENTIONED IN THIS STORY PERSONALLY, OR ARE MENTIONED YOURSELF: please, please click away. This is a work of fiction and nothing written in this story is true. Any accurate information used in this story is publicly available information about public figures, the rest is made up, 100%.
> 
> thanks to em for the tweet that inspired this, and to ali and rachel for being AMAZING and reading it over on such short notice!

For the record, Tyson’s  _ not  _ the first one to suggest that the dog in Gabe’s jersey might be Gabe. Tyson, in fact, is running late, and only arrives towards the tail end of the discussion, in time to hear Josty—that’s right, it’s fucking Josty’s fault, okay, Tyson has no qualms about throwing him under the bus—say, “So, we all agree that this dog’s, like, definitely Landy?” 

“What’re we talking about?” Tyson says, shrugging his bag off his shoulder. 

EJ points at the logo in the center of the dressing room. On it, there is a golden retriever, a Landeskog jersey on its back and a hockey puck between its paws. 

“We don’t know whose dog this is,” he says. “And Gabe’s not here, so.” 

Tyson nods. “So, we’re thinking—” 

“Curse, prolly,” EJ says. 

“None of us know shit about, like, cursebreaking, or curse detection,” Josty says. 

Tyson puts his hands up. “I don’t know anything about anything, man. Didn’t Kerfy go to fuckin’ Harvard?” 

“I  _ graduated _ from Harvard, bitch,” Kerf says, but then he shrugs. “But, I mean. They don’t really teach you about magic and stuff.” 

“Hm,” Tyson says. “Well, Comphy’s a ginger. Does that help us at all?” 

Comph throws his hands up. “Why.  _ Why _ would that make me more qualified to talk about curses.” 

“Actually, Tyson,” Mikko says. “We were thinking that you could help.” 

Tyson blinks. “But— I don’t have any useful knowledge. At all. About anything.”

“Well, sure, but—” Mikko says, and then he looks around the circle, like he’s waiting for someone else to step in. 

Tyson doesn’t miss the way everyone’s suddenly focused on their feet. 

Finally, Nate clears his throat. “Look, of everyone here, you’re… probably the most likely to have been cursed before.” 

“Hey,” Tyson says, very offended. “What makes me more cursed than anyone else?” 

“Well, uh, Worlds, for one,” Nate says. “And also, when you… speak.” 

“Really. Every time I speak.” 

“I meant on camera,” Nate says. “With the singing, and the— y’know.” 

At least he doesn’t outright say,  _ that time you called Gabe a chiseled viking stallion because Lauren asked about hair,  _ or  _ that time you lowkey told Gabe to come to your hotel room on Valentine’s Day,  _ or  _ that time you kind of hit on EJ on Biz’s podcast by accident.  _

“Well, if I’ve ever been cursed, I’ve never known about it, so I won’t be much use,” Tyson says. 

EJ and Nate exchange a look. 

“We also had another theory,” EJ says. 

Tyson crosses his arms, raises his eyebrows, and waits to hear it.

 

It’s a stupid fucking theory. 

 

“Okay,” Tyson says, sitting on the gross dressing room floor, hands on his knees and elbows pointed out. “They think it’s up to me to break this curse.” 

Dog Gabe tilts his head. 

“That’s what I said! But apparently I’ve gotta give this a shot, so— here goes nothing.” 

Tyson looks down at his hands, takes a few breaths, tries to gather his thoughts. After a few seconds, Gabe starts to nose at his knee.

“Dude, give me a sec,” Tyson says. “This is hard shit, y’know?” 

Gabe whimpers. 

“Oh my god,” Tyson says, and then, because Dog Gabe pulling a face is hard to say no to, he begins to pet him. “Ugh, okay, so it’s like— you know, we’ve known each other a while, right?” 

Tyson assumes the bark he gets in response is affirmative. 

“So, like, when you know someone— and you’re friends with someone— I mean, sometimes things happen. Like, maybe someone gets turned into a dog, or someone gets— feelings, or… I dunno. Stuff like that.” 

Gabe is back to looking confused, so Tyson just sighs. 

“Alright, c’mere,” he says, patting his knees, and Gabe gets the message easily, apparently, because he climbs up and starts licking Tyson’s face before Tyson even gets a chance to kiss his head,  _ Princess and the Frog _ -style.

Unfortunately, there is no magical transformation. Just dog breath.

“What’s going on?” a voice says. 

Tyson startles, topples over a bit, and— yeah, there’s Gabe, his usual painfully beautiful human self, standing in the doorway and drinking a smoothie. 

“Nothing,” Tyson says, scrambling to his feet. “You— you’re a person.” 

“Good morning to you too,” Gabe says, looking something between bemused and amused. He nods at the dog. “Who’s the pup?” 

“He’s… uh, just, a dog, I guess,” Tyson says, shooting the dog a look that he hopes says,  _ I have a plan just go with it, okay?,  _ before he remembers that dogs don’t speak, so Tyson can probably trust him not to blow his cover. 

“Okay, but why’s he in the dressing room? Does he have an owner? Why’s he wearing my jersey?” Gabe keeps sipping at his smoothie as he talks, which is pretty distracting. His lips are pink. It’s a thing. 

“Honestly?” Tyson says. “No fucking clue.” 

“He like tummy rubs?”

Tyson shares a glance with the dog. “Yeah, I think he’s down with that.”

“Sweet,” Gabe says, then gets on the floor right next to Tyson, which the dog finds very exciting. 

Their elbows bump a few times. Maybe their pinkies brush.

Whatever. 

 

Tyson refuses to be embarrassed about this, because Gabe hadn’t even heard anything, and it’s all fucking Josty’s fault anyway. 

The dog, as it turns out, is named Wrigley. He’s there to promote the Last Man In All Star thing, and he is a very good boy. 

If Tyson tries hard enough, he can pretend that he knew all along that there was no curse, and just wanted to get his teammates out of his hair so he could play with Wrigley in peace. Because really, if someone wanted to curse Gabe, they wouldn’t turn him into a dog. Dogs are  _ great.  _ Their lives are simple and filled with tummy rubs and devoid of complicated emotions. Really, being turned into a dog probably wouldn’t be a curse at all.

 

“Come on,” Tyson hears a voice say. “I know you two were talking earlier.”

When he pokes his head into the dressing room, he sees Gabe engaged in what appears to be both a game of tug-of-war and a conversation with Wrigley. 

He probably shouldn’t stick around, but really— what’s he supposed to do,  _ not  _ spy on his hot captain’s private conversation with a dog? 

“Give me something here, man,” Gabe says. 

Tyson presses his back to the wall and tells himself that he’s here for one reason only, and it’s apparently to figure out if Gabe can talk to dogs. 

“Fine, don’t tell me,” Gabe says. “See if I ever pet you again.” 

Wrigley barks, and Tyson hears Gabe sigh, quickly followed by a rustling that Tyson assumes is a tummy rub. 

“I know you’re a dog, and you can’t talk—” Well, there goes that theory “—but I just— you know. He’s… you know.” There’s a pause. “I guess you don’t know. You’re new here.” 

There’s a long stretch where Gabe doesn’t say anything, and Tyson starts to think that he should… do something. Make his presence known, or just, like, leave, because clearly Gabe doesn’t have anything to say to Tyson directly, so it really doesn’t matter what he says to— 

“It would just be nice to know if you think I have a shot with him.” 

Tyson trips over his own feet, even though he’s not walking or anything, just standing still, eavesdropping, but otherwise minding his own business. Jesus fuck, maybe he  _ is  _ cursed. 

“What the— Tys?” Gabe says, standing up fast, and Wrigley steps in front of him, like he’s trying to protect him. Clearly, Wrigley doesn’t get the situation— Tyson’s the one who needs protecting. Gabe’s a beautiful knight in shining metaphorical emotional armor. 

“Hi,” Tyson says weakly, throwing Gabe a smile that he hopes is reassuring. “Sorry to interrupt.” 

“How much of that did you hear?” Gabe asks, apparently not reassured. 

“None of it,” Tyson lies. “I don’t even know what there was to hear. What, were you singing a duet with a ghost, or something? I always knew this place was haunted by a theater troupe.” 

Gabe says nothing. Wrigley whimpers.

“Sounds like he wanted it to be a trio,” Tyson says.

“Look, I can explain—” Gabe starts, but Tyson cuts him off. 

“There’s nothing to explain, I didn’t hear anything,” he says. “And if you want to quit hockey and join a ghost a capella group, then all I can say is that I’ll miss you, but I’m not gonna stand between you and your dreams.”

“So you’re just—” He rubs his hand down his face. “You’re a deeply weird person, you know that?”

“That’s not even close to the worst thing that’s been said about me,” Tyson says.

Wrigley starts to bark.

“Okay, hey, okay, that wasn’t supposed to be a challenge,” Tyson says, because apparently the theme for today is ‘one sided conversations with dogs’.  

“Incredibly strange,” Gabe says. 

“At least I don’t sing with ghosts.”

“That’s exactly what someone who sings with ghosts would say,” Gabe points out. 

Tyson shrugs. “Touché.”

Wrigley barks again, insistent, this time. Tyson knows a request for a tummy rub when he hears one, so he kneels down as Wrigley rolls onto his back. Gabe joins him soon enough, which is nice for Wrigley, probably— he seems to like attention almost as much as Gabe. Maybe this morning’s theory hadn’t been so dumb after all.

“Hey,” Tyson asks, not looking up from Wrigley’s fur. “Do you believe in curses?”

“Why do you ask?”

“I dunno,” Tyson says. “Just wondering.”

“Oh.”

There’s a pause, and then Tyson says, “So?”

“I mean,” Gabe says. “I don’t really know.”

“Fair enough,” Tyson says. 

A beat, and then Gabe asks, “What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Do you believe in curses?”

At that moment, Tyson feels Gabe’s fingertips brush against the skin of his hand. 

He’s not entirely convinced it’s an accident. 

“I believe in something,” Tyson says. 

Gabe’s laugh is a little breathless, and his hand’s touching Tyson’s again, this time lingering for a second. “Good answer.”

“I try my best,” Tyson says, and if his face is a little red, it doesn’t really matter, because Gabe’s is too, which is— 

Whatever. 

(But, like. The good kind of whatever.) 

**Author's Note:**

> i'd just like to reiterate that this is not an au, this is 100% canon compliant. the entire colorado avalanche roster, including harvard graduate alexander kerfoot, readily believed that their captain, gabriel landeskog, had been transformed into a dog.


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